When starting a new real estate blog one of the first questions you encounter will be, "What URL should I use for my blog?".  There are several paths you can take so I thought I’d try to give you a quick overview of the options:

Using a brand new www (http://www.myblog.com)

Assuming you own the domain name, a brand new URL can be used for your blog typically in any situation.  This is a good option to take if you plan to do regular marketing of your blog via traditional print mediums.  It makes it easy to say ‘go visit my blog at myblog.com’ versus the alternatives.  However, this is really the only advantage.  When you use a brand new www, the only real connection your blog has to your other existing websites is via your external linking strategy.  There is no "relational" connection from an architecture perspective.

Using a subdomain (http://blog.mywebsite.com)

A subdomain (sometimes called a third level domain) can only be created on a parent uRL if you own that parent URL.  The easiest way to think of these domains is to think of replacing the www with another unique word.  so a subdomain for your blog might be something like blog.mywebsite.com.  No one else can create subdomains on your parent URL, and your ability to create them is unlimited.  While these two entities are intimately tied via a parent-child relationship in the eyes of the search engine, a subdomain is at the same time a unique and separate URL.  Since blogs are typically hosted and operated as a separate mechanism from your website (although in tandem), this is the most connected you can get.  This suggests the two entities (your www and your subs) are in a relationship of trust.  I have seen subdomains and parent URLs working together in the search engine indexes.  Sometimes when you blog about pages within your website or about a topic that your website has focused on for a period of time – the blog subdomain will actually help the www to be pushed up in the search engine results sacrificing its own position. 

There is much confusion over the use of subdomains – and typically only because they are misunderstood.  For instance, a thread in Active Rain recently denounced the use of subdomains for blogs, but it’s important to note that this was *ONLY* for a very specific use case.  Since activerain.com is such a strong parent domain, the use of a subdomain on that parent URL such as yourname.activerain.com for your blog would likely be lost in the search index.  For the simple reason that the very large parent (with varied topics about much more than your real estate market) would always outshine the child – and in this case it is not what you would want.  This is only true of this specific situation.  The use of sub-domains generally for your own blogging efforts, is healthy and allows your parent website and your blog to work very well together.  And, in fact, as mentioned above – although immeasurable, you will often see the blog helping your website to better places in the search index.       

Using a folder within my existing website (http://www.mywebsite.com/blog)

This third option is not often attainable.  Blogs are usually hosted and managed by third party providers just like your websites.  Typically the only people that are able to put a blog in a folder directly on your parent domain are the people that created that website.  The problem with this is that although your website providers will often offer an option to start a blog – it is not their core area of expertise.  Business blogging requires discipline and education to be done correctly.  When your website provider "turns on" a blog option, that is usually all they do – from there you’re typically on your own to figure out the rest.  If you can find a way to do this AND get a comprehensive education about blogging for your business, then this is a very viable option.

Hopefully this provides a bit more of a foundation for understanding blog URL options.  In all cases, it is important to note that your providers can typically help you to take the necessary steps to set these domains up.  The process, although foreign, is really not that complex and can easily be attained.